Tipsheet

No, Republicans Didn't Win Because of 'Misinformation'

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  November 12, 2024 2:01 PM
 

We're seeing all sorts of coping on the Left in the aftermath of Donald Trump's victory last week.  Much of it involves blaming the supposed 'bigotry' of the electorate, which is an incredibly off-putting and counter-productive approach that reinforces one of the big reasons why Trump won.  It's also less salient and applicable than ever, considering the remarkably diverse victory coalition Trump assembled, in which voters of color abandoned Democrats in huge numbers.  Virtually every single voting demographic shifted rightward this year, rendering the 'bigotry' smear even more lazy and insulting than usual.  Another form of coping we're witnessing is leftists insisting that right-wing media is just too dominant to compete with.  Of course, some of the "right-wing" sources whose influence they lament aren't necessarily right-wing at all.  Joe Rogan has been left-ish and hard to pin down ideologically for much of his career, but perhaps he's moved a certain way lately because major figures on the Left sought to punish, silence and de-platform him in recent years.  And maybe he was persuaded by the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees who appeared on his show, without hassle or pre-condition, unlike the no-show Democrats.

More broadly, though, the notion that the overall media environment isn't pro-Democrat enough is hysterically untethered to reality.  I'd suggest that the overwhelming Democratic bent of the so-called 'news' media, and other traditional cultural tastemakers is a major factor behind trust in media crashing into the sea.  The rise of alternative media is undoubtedly correlated to many legacy institutions being increasingly and rightly viewed as dishonest propaganda machines.  A related form of coping is a retread of the 'misinformation' panic, wherein the Left claims that virtually any inconvenient political reality for them is a product of people being deceived or bamboozled by nefarious actors.  Of course, we've seen repeatedly that major examples of alleged 'misinformation' turn out to be either debatable claims, or fully accurate information. The COVID lab leak and Hunter Biden's laptop come to mind.  Which brings us to this chart, via the pollster Ipsos (which appears to have missed the national presidential margin by four points), which has been shared in several viral online posts:


These stupid, gullible voters were tricked by the right-wing misinformation machine, resulting in "misinformed views" on major issues, thus resulting in Trump votes.  Those who knew 'correct' facts about reality overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, but they were overwhelmed by ignorant Republican voters.  That's their story.  Let's examine the four examples of 'misinformation:'

(1) Actually, according to data, violent crime is up in the United States, depending on what baseline and data set you cite.  This is demonstrated in the FBI's annual national crime victimization survey, which many people see as a better measure of overall trends than incomplete FBI data.  But as we learned recently, even the latter data set appears to show rising violent crime.  Whether the crime spikes of recent years count as "at or near all-time highs" is less relevant than the accurate directional sentiment in the country: Crime is up.  A lot of it doesn't get reported.  A ton of it doesn't get investigated, prosecuted, or punished (seriously or at all).  It's a widely-felt and -understood problem.  Believing true things is not evidence of "misinformation."

(2) While the rate of inflation has come down in recent months, prices are still headed upward -- and some key inflation metrics just came in hotter than expected, again.  Limiting the inflation question to the last year excludes the period of time in which the phenomenon harmed people the most, following trillions in inflationary spending rammed through on party-line votes, over the warnings of economists, and secured by the Democratic nominee's tie-breaking votes.  People know that nearly everything costs much more than it did when the current Democratic administration took over, having inherited a very low inflation rate.  Prices are 20 percent higher across the board and have not receded.  The pain increasing less rapidly than it did earlier in the Biden/Harris term doesn't not translate into a sense of increased buying power for Americans who've been suffering under the results of these policies for three years.  Awareness of this harm is not evidence of "misinformation."

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(3) The question about the stock market being at or near all-time highs had the lowest partisan split, and it's not a terribly helpful metric anyway.  When people aren't feeling good about the economy, how Wall Street is performing isn't generally near the top of the list when it comes to reaching this assessment.  People may have underestimated surging markets because those surges are disconnected from experiences in their own communities in lives.

(4) As with the inflation question, the immigration framing focuses on very recent patterns, in an effort to blot out the larger picture of the Biden/Harris administration's unprecedented four-year border catastrophe.  Biden finally implemented some executive actions that have helped stem the tide a bit, embracing options he'd intentionally avoided for years (Texas' enhanced enforcement has also played a key role, despite Biden/Harris suing to prevent said enforcement).  More than ten million illegal border crossings (including an unknowable number of unaccounted-for got-aways) have occurred during the administration of President Biden and Border Czar Harris, a stunning and historic increase over the Trump administration.  Far too many of these unlawful entrants are committing high-profile crimes inside the United States.  Noticing this, and rightly discarding the 'last few months' qualifier, is not evidence of 'misinformation.'

This whole chart -- assembled by an accuracy-challenged pollster and shared widely by leftists who don't want to grapple with why their side was rejected by voters -- prizes technicalities over realities.  Technically, violent crime rates in some cities do not qualify as historical highs.  Technically, inflation levels are down over the last year.  Technically, illegal border crossings have slowed in the last few months.  But generally, crime is up, prices are way up, and illegal immigration has never been worse over the course of a presidential term.  People who internalized and responded to the latter reality, rather than the former technicalities, are cast as victims of 'misinformation,' and therefore 'misinformed.'   That's yet another instance of sneering arrogance and condescension that is quite helpful in explaining why Democrats lost the election.  Here's Mary Katharine Ham going off on the 'misinformed' chart:

What’s at the heart of this is that voters inclined to vote for Democrats (+media) are inclined to give Ds credit for doing anything on the country’s problems at any time, so both their questions and answers are geared to do that. So, inflation rates are down but prices aren’t? Ds say great! Why don’t you understand this, bumpkins? Crime is not at a historic high but you can’t get deodorant without an escort and a key? A lot of Ds think that’s fine. Goldman Sachs says the economy is great! Why don’t you feel good, dumb dumbs? Border crossings are down! That’s awesome, say Ds (right after they said there was no crisis)! People not inclined to vote for Ds see the millions let across the border up until now. These questions are framed by people inclined to vote for Ds. They’re as charitable an evaluation of the last 4 yrs as possible. They necessarily edit out much of the 4-yr term and amplify good things. It’s its own form of misinformation and media does plenty of it. The problem for Ds is they must convince people to vote for them based on the last 4 years and not everyone will give them as much credit for Johnny come lately feints to fixing problems they caused. The Democratic Party and its allies will probably respond, not by convincing these people, but by trying to censor online speech or bullying harder over stuff like this.

Finally, on the topic of cope, I'll leave you with this: